Hondo 775 Deluxe Series Star

This 1980 star-shaped guitar came with one Seymour Duncan copy humbucker, and six on a side tuners. It has a strat-style tremolo and a 21-fret maple "skunk stripe" neck. The finish looks to be painted on and, on mine, has worn considerably. The guitar sounds like a masonite body; very resonant even when unplugged. he tremolo seems to stay pretty well in tune, unless you really go for a lot of dive bombs. The tuning pegs could probably stand to be replaced as well.

I play mostly alternative rock, REM, Radiohead, NIN and this guitar sounds pretty good for that type of music. The pickup was crap so I replaced it with a Fender blue/red lace sensor and a coil tap switch. I also had to replace the phone plug jack. For a 27 year old guitar, it sounds phenomenal. I use it with a Vox Tonelab and a Digitech Whammy and, with the new pickups, it sings without an unusual amount of feedback.

It's a Hondo, so what do you want? I had the frets dressed and the back of the skunk stripe filled and sanded down. Again, for a 27 year old guitar it is solid.

I think with better tuners this guitar would be as reliable as anything I own. I have some other vintage guitars and this is, by far, the best.

Hondo as an independent company doesn't even exist any more, they were bought by another company.

OK remember I paid $70 for the guitar, another $50 for the pickup and $120 to replace the tremolo bar and have it set up. I play this guitar all the time. It is very light and comfortable. I have a variety of guitars, some worth as much as $3000 and this guitar definitely has its own sound and feel which is more than worth the price. My guitar tech says he rarely sees these but everyone who owns one covets it. To me the best part of this guitar is that you can customize it and not feel like you are ruining a relic. The neck and body are solid, so you have a lot to work with. Like most inexpensive older guitars, the truss rod stinks, but if you are lucky you won't have to adjust it too much.

80's shredder, star shaped {possible charvel copy} made in japan I think? maybe korea
21 medium frets, fat strat style bolt on maple neck and board, with bullet trussrod, laminate top, striped wood grain finish, body may be laminate plywood, one volume one tone control, for a single SD style pickup near the bridge, bridge is a strat style with spring tremelo, non locking tuners, no case

I'll play anything, and this guitar can sound like anything, decent distortion, also plays well clean, possibly due to the cheap laminate body that is very resonate! if you want a neck pickup sound, just turn down the tone!

I lowered the action as far as it would go, the pickups are non adjustable pole types, the fretwork and fittings of the bridge and the rest of the guitar are very nice, they seemed to make {less expensive} guitars more seriously back then, altho you can feel the skunk stripe starting to seperate from the neck, its not a real issue

its very well made and has lasted this long,
hardware will last no problem
tons of lacquer on the whole guitar it won't wear thru with normal use
strap buttons are solid, I would rely on this without any backup guitar

too old, at least 20 yrs! I think hondo is still around though,
no need for customer support

I have owned the cheapest, and the finest guitars around, for the price these are going for they are a fun and well made working instrument, if stolen I would try to find another , other companies like CORT AND ARBOR also got in on this design, some of them with set necks and 2 pickups, I decided to go with the strat arrangement, all maple with bolt on neck, if you see one of these and its $200 or under give it a try!

circa 1980-84? Made in either Japan or S. Korea; 21 fret 25.5" scale one-piece maple neck w/skunk stripe on back; one volume/one tone controls; single humbucker; most likely a laminated maple or alder body (I'm guessing); Fender Strat-type 6-screw vintage-type tremolo;
When I got this guitar I immediately changed the no-original Seymour Duncan Invader p'up to a Gibson "Tony Iommi" p'up. The chrome Gotoh tuners were changed to BLACK Mighty-Mite tuners. The chrome tremolo was changed to a BLACK vintage trem. The volume and tone were discarded and replaced by a lone volume pot with a BLACK barrel knob.
The original finish (vintage white, w/bronze binding) was kept original. It's in very good shape, so I'll preserve it as long as possible. I also saved the original tremolo, and tuners, and knobs....which are in a box marked HONDO...

Before the modifications, it sounded fine, considering it had a non-original Duncan p'up in it.
After the mods, it sounded noticeably better. Clean through a Carvin 100watt solid-state combo, it sounded full, with good sustain. No string buzz. With the Digitech Metal Master turned on, it sounded as it should. Evil death-metal sound that is not too trebly, and not muddy on the low end. Sustain is surprisingly lengthy, considering that the new trem I installed has a zinc block instaed of a steel block. It sounds better than my Dean ZX, which the "Tony Iommi" p'up came out of. This may be due to the maple fingerboard which is actually part of the one piece neck....

Action was set at the store I bought it from. I re-adjusted it to my liking, which didn't take much. The finish has a few dings-no biggie...The routs on the body, and the neck fit to the body are ever-so-slightly mis-alligned. I've encountered this before on many factory-fresh Ibanez's, and other import guitars. It left the factory that way. No adverse affects. Does not affect sound quality or playability at all. It's just noticeable to the eye.

This guitar will do fine as a stage instrument. I can depend on it. It's quite solid. More solid than my near new Dean ZX, or my Epiphone SG.

I doubt if Hondo would give me customer support on this near-25-year-old "Hair-era" relic

I love this guitar. They built'em more solid in the 1980's than they do now. My Epiphone and Dean (both made in china) never sounded this good. There seems to be more ACTUAL wood in the HONDO body than the EPI and Dean. Not that anyone would steal it, if it was stolen, I'd just find another one like it.